hackSOLID
by YellowBox
Summary: Raiden and Otacon investigates the mysteries of The World, and along the way meet Shugo and Rena as they uncover many untold secrets of the seemingly innocent MMORPG.
1. Chapter 1

**.hack//SOLID**

Chapter 1

Otacon brushed aside his wild brown hair from his glasses, glowing from the reflection of monitors. The Philanthropy had seen little actual action, as the Patriots had been in the shadows since their last encounter with them. Otacon sat at his metal desk, three monitors with a tangle of wires leading to their large towers, in a convulted mess. Otacon was typing away at a forum reply box while watching a subtitled Anime in a resized window. He clicked the mouse and slurped his noodles waiting for a reply. He swivled his chair to the right monitor, the one desiganted for cases. He scrolled through some.

"Case 542342.9: Astrounauts with police authority are sent to Beyond Coast colony, one has gone missing..." Otacon tapped his chin "We don't have the money or the tools to do a space-based mission. Besides...I doubt the Patriots were behind this." He scrolled down further. "Case 89797.0: Popular Anime style MMORPG "The World" has reports of users falling into comas...." Otacon took a last slurp of his ramen "Now that sounds like something we can do!" He said excitedly, turning on the middle computer.

The logo ALTIMA OS flashed on the screen and then a list of contacts. Otacon put on a headset, and tunned to frequency 141.80 on his codec. "Raiden? Raiden? Raaaaaiden!"

A stern looking man with shoulder length blond hair appearned on the screen. "What is it Otacon?" he said annoyed. "Well, we have a case and I thought you'd be perfect for it. Meet me at HQ, alright?" Otacon said turning off the left monitor and swilving towards the center one.

"I'll be there. Anything to get out of my house..." Raiden said, grabbing miscellanous items on his white desk.

"Trouble with Rose?" Octacon said with a raise of an eyebrow.

Raiden grumbled and hung up.

"Heh heh." Otacon chuckled. "Hm...I wonder if this means I can get an account for free because its government work?"

* * *

Raiden pressed buttons on the password activated metal door. Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a. BEEP! The door's opener wheel unlocked. Raiden spun it a few times and opened the door. Otacon was nowhere to be seen. "Otacon?" Raiden said, looking around his messy desk. "I'm in the VR chambers!" Otacon shouted. Raiden walked in, as Otacon was eagerly tapping away at a keyboard, watching a large screen above a relclined leather chair.

"Since when did we have VR chambers?" Raiden said, "Since when did we have the _money _for VR chambers?"

Otacon motioned for Raiden to sit in the chair. "Well, you know Natasha's book 'In the Darkness of Shadow Moses'?"

"Yeah..." Raiden said leaning back uneasily in the chair.

Otacon grabbed a bulky face mounted displayer from a shelf. "Well, a video game company in Japan made a video game adaption of it. And they gave the Philanthropy a percent of the earnings! It really is a great game, and I'm not just saying that because I'm in it. Speaking of games, ever heard of the MMORPG 'The World'?"

""No, never heard the name before." Raiden noticed the visor "You didn't call me here just to play video games did you?"

"Not just any video game!" Otacon said, handing Raiden a controller "We have gotten reports of people falling into comas while playing!"

Raiden pulled the visor over his head "Maybe they were eplitic. Maybe they were playing too long. Maybe-"

"I'm afraid not. Find the reason. I'll be guiding you through this." Raiden could faintly hear Otacon's voice.

ALTIMA OS flashed on the screen. Then a logo flashed "THE WORLD". After the logos, Raiden found himself in a town. There was canals all around the city's central plaza. Raiden was in the shadow of the city's large clock tower infront of a spinning golden disk. Raiden was wearing what looked like a black wet suit, with white wild hair and a sword at his hilt.

"You like, Raiden? You are currently in newbie town called 'Mac Anu'. Low level characters reside here." Otacon's voice seemed to boom around him.

"How I'm I supposed to collect data if I'm a low level character? I'll get killed before I can find out anything..." Raiden said, seemingly to the air. This warrented strange looks from curious bystanders.

"Don't worry, I hacked you a Level 99 Twin Blade class character. This should make it easier on you." Otacon said. "Oh and one more thing, watch out for a group called the Cobalt Knigh-"

Otacon's voice was cut off by someone else. "We are the Cobalt Knights! You have cheated and will be punished immediatly!" The man talking was in armor with a blue cross on his chest and a visor over his eyes. He held a large spear threatningly towards Raiden.

"-s. Those guys." Otacon sighed.

The knight swung the large spear at Raiden. Raiden jumped and started to run away from the man. More Cobalt Knights joined the chase, as Raiden nimbly dodged their spears. "Can I fight them?" Raiden said frantically to Otacon.

"No. It doesn't matter how powerful you are, they can ban you and prevent us from getting the information we need. Try to lose them." Otacon replied.

Raiden looked around and saw nothing but canals surrounding them.  
"No place to run, hacker!" the man said with a smug smile.

They kept getting closer, till Raiden backpeddled to the edge of the canal.

"I'll save you!" The voice came from above, and sounded young.

Before Raiden knew what was happening, a young boy had dragged him away from the knights and through a spinning golden circle.

Δ Hidden Forbidden Holy Ground flashed on the top left corner of Raiden's screen, as it went black.


	2. Chapter 2

**.hack//SOLID**

Chapter 2

When the screen came back on, he saw who rescued him. A teenage boy with azure hair, red wave markings on his face, with a cotton red cap, shirt, and pants. On the wrist of his leather glove was a large nut-shaped golden bracelet.

"Who are you?" Raiden said, getting up and dusting himself off.

"I'm Shugo!" he said excitedly "And who maybe my damsel in distress?"

Before Raiden answered, someone punched him in the head. It was a dark skinned girl, with pink hair and reddish-pink armor made up of a bikini top and a battle skirt. Touching her large white boots was a huge two-handed sword on her back. "Idiot! He's a man!" she barked at him. "Aren't heroes supposed to be smart?"

"Sorry about my brother. My name is Rena. Who are you?" she said in a softer tone.

"My name is Raiden. I-" Raiden paused and whispered to Otacon "Can I tell them why I'm here?"

"Sure. According to my intel. they are Japanese 14-year old siblings. I wouldn't worry about them being affilated with The Patriots. They might tell you something too if they learn you have authority."

"Who are you talking to?" Shugo said looking around Raiden for someone or something.

"No one." Raiden said. "Anyway, my name is Raiden. I'm actually here for the U.S. goverment investigating the reasons behind the various comas that have been happening around here. You two wouldn't know anything about it would you?"  
There was an awkward pause. Rina broke the silence, "Yes. You see, there are certain bugs in the system such as renagade AI and-"

"Renagade AI?" Raiden exclaimed at the same time Otacon did.

"Yeah, and there were these people called the '.hackers' who were able to eliminate them." Shugo chimed in.

"How exactly did they do that? What caused this?" Raiden said frantically. _This sounded suspicously like something The Patriots could be behind._

"Well, they used," Shugo pointed to his heavy golden bracelet. "this. Its the Twilight Bracelet. I got it from Aura."

"Aura?" Raiden said looking around for someone.

"Here it will be easier if we just show you..." Rena said and indicated the building in front of them.

Raiden noticed they were on a stone bridge, surrouned by a mist lake. In front of them was a large cathedral lay, adorned with intricate gold patterns on the windows on either side of a stone door ajar.

Shugo and Rena ran up the steps and into the cathedral.

Raiden walked slowly up the steps, behind them.

"That's Aura." Rena said pointing to a teenage girl floating in the center of the chappel, with wavy white hair flowing on her sparkling violet dress. She seemed to be asleep.

"Good morning, Aura." Shugo said stepping closer towards her.

Aura looked up at the company, with wide blue eyes that seemed to glow.

"Hello, Shugo. Hello, Rena. Hello, Raiden." she said in a soft voice with the wave of a hand.

"How do you know my name?" Raiden said, suspicous.

"I know everything about here....Hm..." Aura tapped her chin. "I had a strange dream. I dreampt that someone was saying: La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo If You Understand La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo You May Discover The Truth La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo."

Raiden gasped. "The Patriots?! But how-?"

"Hm...that name reminded me of more of the dream." Aura said floating closer to Raiden. "La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo You Do Understand La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo 108 scarlet stars rest La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo Obtaining all will be crucial to your quest La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo This is your first test."

"Hey, Raiden." Otacon sounded as shocked as Raiden felt.

"What is it?" Raiden said, eyes still transfixed on Aura.

Otacon did a heavy sigh."We have a new case."


	3. Chapter 3

**.hack//SOLID**

Chapter 3

"I don't see any stars..." Shugo said looking up and around the cathedral.

"Maybe they're invisible?" Rena said, looking around as well.

"Hm..." Raiden grabbed a piece of wood from a neaby fireplace. "Is there any way you two can create fire?"

Shugo nodded, grabbing out his swords. "Twiiin Dragons!" he shouted and slashed out a fire ball at the wood on the floor.

"Good. Good." Raiden said, watching the smoke perfume up to the ceiling.

"How is that supposed to-" Rena was cut off by now visible star shaped papers floating in the smoke.

"There too high to reach." Shugo said, jumping up for them.

"Any way you can get them wet?" Raiden said.

"Yeah!" Shugo got his swords back out, and shouted "Tempest Strike!"

Black clouds swirled at the top of the cathedral. Lightning struck down as rain started to pour. The damp pieces of paper fell to the ground.

Shugo maintained the storm as Rena and Raiden collected the pieces of paper, until there were no more left.

"Do we have all 108?" Shugo said, putting his swords away.

"34-35-36! No...were missing alot of stars!" Rena said, cradling the damp pieces of star shaped paper.

"Where could they be?" Raiden said, walking out of the cathedral.

"I think I might now." Otacon said. Raiden could hear him typing at this keyboard. "Ever heard of the Chinese myth '108 stars of Destiny'?"

"No...why?" Raiden said.

"Well, in the myth there were 36 Heavenly spirits, and 72 Earthly warriors." Otacon said, with a slurp of what most likely was a noodle.

"I see...so the other stars most be buried around this island...." Raiden said.

"Right." Otacon said.

Raiden called Shugo and Rena outside the cathedral. "I think I know where the other stars are. I think they are buried underneath the ground on this island and-"  
Raiden was cut off by the sound of hundreds of heavy footsteps.

Hundreds of soldiers with blue crosses lay infront of them. At their front was a woman with short hair parted away from one golden eye and one blue eye. With a smug smile she said "I am Kamui! You have been caught by the Cobalt Knights and will be punished for your malicious cheating!" They charged at the group.

"I'll hold them off!" Shugo shouted, charging to the front of the party. "You two find the stars!"  
Rena and Raiden nodded.

All of the knights charged at Shugo. "Darkness Slash!" Shugo shouted, and a horizontal black crescent knocked all of the knights down.

Meanwhile, Rena pierced the earth shouting "Gan Divider!" The ground split in two, and scarlet stars floated upwards. Raiden grabbed some, and then remebered he had skills of his own. "Terror Cyclone!" He said. A black cone started to spirial in the large gap between the earth and all of the papers in the cyclone spun towards Raiden. Raiden put up his swords, and all of the papers dropped to the ground. Rena and Raiden started to gather them as quickly as possible.

"Hurry up, guys!" Shugo yelled, being stabbed by the spears of the soldiers.

"Nowhere to run now, Shugo!" Kamui said with a smirk.

"Thats what you think!" Shugo stretched out an arm. The golden bracelet glowed ominously.

"...You wouldn't!" Kamui said backing up.

"Data-" Shugo began.

"Everyone draw back! Retreat!" Kamui barked.

The soldiers ran towards the gate, and Kamui followed.

"Phew!" Shugo sighed.

"Hey, big brother! Me and Blondie collected all the stars!" Rena said patting Raiden's shoulder.

The stars floated upwards, glowing. They spun closer and closer to each other until a large piece of paper floated downwards towards them.

Raiden grabbed it. "Its...a map..." Raiden smoothed it out and laid it on the stone bridge so the others could see it.

"Hey! It has key words for a field!" Shugo exclaimed, pointing to the top right corner.

"Key words?" Raiden said, squinting at the small text.

"Yeah, you insert three words once you enter a Chaos Gate (the spinning circles) and you transport were you need to go. This one says α Devil's Dracula Castle..." Rena trailed off.

"Never knew there was an Alpha server..." Shugo looked puzzedly at the map.

"Well we need to go." Raiden said, folding the map and putting it away. He walked to the gate. The others did too.

▄█▓▒D3vi?'s Dracu?a Ca5t?3flashed on Raiden's screen before it went black.


End file.
